Air Transport Market Analysis - Market 2012

• Passenger and freight volumes in February were considerably higher than a year ago, but this strength was exaggerated by several factors;
  
• Air travel markets were up 8.6% in February compared to the same month a year ago, and air freight markets rebounded strongly from a weak January to expand by 5.2%;
  
• However, there were distortions to the February results for several reasons - weaker air traffic during Arab Spring a year ago, postponed shipments of cargo in January from the Chinese New Year holiday, and Carnival in Brazil occurring a month early in 2011;
  
• Regions most impacted by these events show significantly exaggerated year-on-year growth rates in February - passenger travel increased by more than 20% in Africa and the Middle East and by 16% in Latin America, while freight markets in Asia/Pacific grew 9%;
  
• After adjusting for the distortions, passenger traffic has been increasing at an annualised rate close to the 20-year trend, 6%, since the Arab Spring;
  
• By contrast, freight traffic continued to fall beyond the Arab Spring at an annualised rate of 5% through to September 2011;
  
• But has subsequently stabilised and has moved around a broadly flat trend through to February 2012;
  
• Capacity has expanded at a slightly lower rate than the growth in demand, allowing a further rise in passenger load factors in February;
  
• Together with stabilisation in freight load factors, this will help to contain the damage to airline profitability from high fuel costs;
  
• The outlook for markets still remains fragile, however, with improvements in business confidence slowing in February, containing the upside for business travel, and higher fuel costs threatening price sensitive markets.

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